WGN Authority Report: July 17th

17 Jul , 2018

It was another busy week in esports with regular seasons winding down and playoffs just getting started. The Overwatch league playoffs have begun sending two of the six qualifying teams home while the NBA2K League held its second mid-season invitational. Meanwhile FPS fans were treated to some great Call of Duty action. With so much to cover lets hope right in!

Overwatch League

The inaugural Overwatch League playoffs have officially gotten underway with the 3rd-6th seeded teams battling it out for their chance to compete in the upcoming final weekend of competition. These quarter-final rounds pitted the Philadelphia Fusion against the Boston Uprising while the London Spitfire were matched up against the LA Gladiators.

Philadelphia was able to take a commanding 3-1 victory in the first day of competition. Boston was able to bounce back in the first series on Friday winning 3-1 themselves, forcing a final best of five to be played. Here Philadelphia found their prior form, and were again able to dispatch of the Uprising 3-1 to end their championship ambitions.

The Gladiators were able to shock everyone by sweeping the Spitfire in their first day of action, but would be unable to continue this momentum forward into their second day of play. With their lives on the line London significantly improved their overall performance, resulting in back to back 3-0 sweeps of the Gladiators removing them from the competition.

With the quarterfinals complete the semi-finals are now locked in. The Philadelphia Fusion will have to square off against the top ranked New York Excelsior while the London Spitfire will find themselves playing the LA Valiant, who will certainly be seeking revenge on behalf of their Gladiator brothers.

You can catch all of the action live on Twitch this Wednesday, Friday and Saturday beginning at 8PM, 7PM and 8PM EST respectively.

Call of Duty World League

Stage 2 of the 2018 CWL has almost concluded its regular season with only one week remaining on the schedule. Division A has already concluded and it was an incredibly close finish. Ultimately Red Reserve came out on top in the division with an 11-3 record giving them the top seed heading into the playoffs. Team Kaliber, Echo Fox and FaZe Clan were the other three teams from the division to secure playoff berths.

Division B will feature its final showdowns over the new few days. Rise Nation and OpTic enter the final week leading the pack with 8-3 records but Unilad is only one win behind them with one less game played. Currently in the fourth and final playoff spot is eUnited with a record of 6-4 but with two teams sitting at 5 wins on the season no team can safely assume a spot in these playoffs is theirs. This will be an incredible week of Call of Duty action you won’t want to miss. The games will be broadcast each evening this week on Twitch.

NBA2K League – The Ticket

The NBA2K League held its second mid-season tournament dubbed The Ticket, and a new champion emerged. Despite struggling for the majority of the season so far posting only a 3-7 record, it was Knicks Gaming that emerged victorious after the hard-fought competition. Their path to victory included encounters with the 4th place Cavaliers in the semi finals and the 10th place Celtic Crossover in the finals.

The tournament and its surprising results did an incredible job illustrating just how evenly matched the majority of the teams in this league are. It’s impossible to predict who will win a match on any given night by just looking at the teams existing records before entering the contest.

The league will take a week break before entering its final four weeks of competition in the inaugural season. The Blazers still lead the regular season standings with an impressive 8-1 record. Having taken their loss recently and being eliminated in the first round of The Ticket has their dominance in question heading into this final stage however.

Meanwhile the Warriors gaming squad are still struggling, having only accumulated 2 wins on the season to date they will need to hope for a significantly improved performance in the final leg if they want to have a shot at making the playoffs.